North Carolina State University Athletics
Behind The Scenes With Tony Haynes: Pitt Power Wins Out
12/21/2001 12:00:00 AM | Pack Athletics
Dec. 21, 2001
By Tony Haynes
Maybe the outcome of Thursday night's Tangerine Bowl would have been different had NC State All-America linebacker Levar Fisher not gone out with a broken arm in the second quarter.
And maybe the Wolfpack offense would have made more big plays and put more points on the board had starting receivers Jerricho Cotchery and Bryan Peterson not gotten hurt.
Maybe things would have been different had a roughing the kicker call that restored momentum to the Pitt side late in the second quarter been called running into the kicker instead.
Maybe....but probably not.
NC State head coach Chuck Amato put it most succinctly following Pitt's 34-19 victory when he said, "they whipped us."
The whipping took place where most whippings occur: up front at the line of scrimmage. Six weeks into the season, Pitt coach Walt Harris and his staff figured it out: success doesn't always require funky spread formations, zany trick plays and no-huddle, fast break tactics.
For some teams, Pitt being one, it's sometimes better to simplify or go back to the basics, if you will. Since scrapping the no-huddle spread and returning to a traditional power approach to football, the Panthers have been unbeatable. Make that unbeatable and dominant.
If you include Thursday night's Tangerine Bowl, Pitt outscored its last six opponents 194-to-56.
It was only through NC State's gutsy instinct for survival that the game against the Panthers was as close as it was. Chuck Amato doesn't give up and neither do his players. Though it was getting mashed most of the night, the Pack battled, scratched and clawed, a characteristic that made the game more respectable than it could have been otherwise.
On defense, Pitt's down linemen and blitzing linebackers made life very difficult for NC State's Philip Rivers, a quarterback who was sacked only 17 times during the regular season. But in the Tangerine Bowl, Panther pass rushers made sure the Wolfpack's sensational sophomore never got into a rhythm. It's no accident that Rivers ended up rushing nine times for 30 yards. In most cases, he was just running for his life.
Adding the four sacks it recorded on Thursday night, Pitt now has 29 in its last six games, a stunning average of nearly five per contest.
When the game ended, the coaches met at midfield and the players shook hands before heading off to their respective lockerrooms. The final numbers show that two 7-5-football teams had gotten after it inside Orlando's massive 70,000 seat Citrus Bowl Stadium.
But on this night, one 7-5 team had clearly been better than the other.
